Robert Exley
As Jimmy Carr once quipped on one of his numerous comedy DVDs about being mid-way through his fourth decade, "The only way I’d be considered young now is if I died". Well, another way would be if you were suddenly made a Premiership football manager like André Villas-Boas had been last summer – not that a long life-expectancy is any guarantee in that sphere, however, particularly when your destination happens to be London SW6.
Conversely, a way of being considered old and of diminishing use before the rest of society would ever deem you so, is to become a Premiership footballer. John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and Didier Drogba may not yet have a grey hair between them; however, in footballing terms, they are coming up to a period in their life where they are starting to be considered, quite literally, as Chelsea Pensioners – along with the seven other members of the Chelsea squad over the age of 30. About a week or so prior to his appointment at Stamford Bridge last June, I had carried out my own review of the then flavour of the month within European Football circles –
Andre Villas Boas - as part of my ‘After Wenger’ series. I believe, looking back now, I had called it exactly right that AVB was too inexperienced to take on a side competing in the Champions League and hoping to win the Premiership. A big part of me too, however, still thinks there will be a day in the dim and distant future where AVB may come good at the very top.
The great Arrigo Sacchi, who himself never played football professionally, and before becoming a football coach earned a living as a shoe salesman, once said "I never realised that in order to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first". A rather clever analogy – although in order to succeed as a jockey one has to be considerably smaller than the beast you intend to ride to glory. AVB’s inability to ride the famous West London filly anywhere near to this season’s finishing line, in contrast, was largely down to his being far too small in footballing stature for the job in hand. In fact, the contest between some of the mammoth egos in the Chelsea dressing room and AVB turned out to be the physical equivalent of Frankie Dettori taking on Vladimir Klitschko, Queensbury rules style.
It also goes without saying that any jockey is unlikely to ride a horse to glory without a whip in hand, something that AVB was quite clearly denied at the Bridge. As Voltaire originally said, and as later plagiarised by that great Superhero, Spiderman, "with power comes great responsibility". However, being the Chelsea manager quite clearly turns this truism on its head, as the role entails ultimate responsibility with literally no power whatsoever. Chelsea have now got through eight managers in nine years – the same number that Arsenal have got through in the last 54 years and Manchester United in the last 75! And there are some players there at Chelsea that have been a fixture throughout the time of most of those eight – Lamps and JT, of course, have been there for all of the eight.
The Roman Emperor of Stamford Bridge, like many emperors from medieval days, quite clearly wants his servants who act as a layer between him and his playthings to be akin to a eunuch. However, the lack of a stable managerial power caused by the revolving door at the Bridge has had unintended consequences for Mr Abramovich. Those long-standing and indulged Chelsea players have become akin to feral rich wild teenagers lacking a stable permanent parental figure in their day-to-day lives. AVB, in his bid to control them, was like a foreign teenage au pair who came over to these shores optimistic and willing to learn a new environment, only to be used, intimidated, overwhelmed and horrifically out of his depth trying to control those of roughly the same age, who saw him as no authority whatsoever.
Now, there are no doubt many of us in Arsenal Land who find the current predicament at Stamford Bridge hilariously funny to watch, especially so as they are now the primary threat to Arsenal’s retaining their place in next season’s Champions League. There is, however, a stark warning from Chelsea’s downfall. The source of Chelsea’s troubles is easy to trace – all roads lead to Roman. If you care to remember just five short years ago, when Chelsea made their debut appearance at the ground named after an airline, it was their failure to beat us which ultimately stopped them from a hat-trick of Premiership titles. It was, however, a shallow victory for us. While ‘what a load of rubbish’ rung out from the Arsenal fans, the special one reassuringly headed over to the blue corner of the ground with his ‘chin up’ gesture to the fans – you knew he would bounce back from that failure. He did, of course, do just that but, other than completing his cup double at Wembley days later, his rise from the ashes of that failure was not to be at SW6. Chelsea bounced back too, but they were nowhere near the same animal. Likewise, the double-winning Chelsea of just 22 months ago are a long way from the one that Roberto Di Matteo hopes to rally back to a Champions League spot. And yes, had either José or Carlo Ancelotti not been shown the door, it would have been deemed unthinkable that Chelsea would today be staring into the abyss of Thursday Night Football on Channel 5.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Arsène and club’s board of directors have many faults and many failings; if you use the search engine on this website, you can see where I have pointed these out in previous articles. However, the ‘oligarch’ option, from Chelsea’s experience, isn’t quite as rosy as people seem to think it would be. Though Wenger has the opposite predicament to AVB, in being accorded excessive autonomy over the direction of the club, and despite the stagnation of finishing fourth and winning nothing for far too long, at least it is still unlikely that at Arsenal an experienced manager who has won trophies in recent seasons would be given the push for something as innocuous as one single solitary barren year (for example, would anyone have seriously considered sacking Wenger in 1999?) or for a failure to bend to the whim of the owner on what player to buy (as another example, who was doing the bidding for Modric last season during the lapse between Carlo’s sacking and AVB’s appointment?). And that’s before we’ve even considered how much money has been paid out to these managers in order to terminate their contracts.
Many see Alisher Usmanov as the answer to Arsenal’s current problems, but remember - Usmanov is as similar to Abramovich as Stan Kroenke is to his fellow countrymen, Hicks and Gillett. Though the present set up at Arsenal is far from a desirable one, be careful what you wish for, because at this current time the oligarch option doesn’t look too clever an option either.
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